for a Wedding Date
by evil older sister
Summary: Part of the 'A Choice to the Left' universe. Clach, but only lightly. minor character death. Claire has searched and struggled but she found her knight.


_**I had originally wanted this entire universe to be a non incest Paire, but the Nathan/Peter snuck itself in so my second favorite Claire pairing came to the rescue, and now a Clach piece. Part of my "A choice to the left" Universe you should read the other stories for the back story on this, but you can read this as a standalone. Now, without further ado**_

_**For a Wedding Date**_

Claire Bennet smoothed the cloth of her jeans nervously. She had been waiting for this day for a year; since her mother had passed, two months after Peter nearly exploded. After Kirby Plaza and all the events that led up to it, Carol and Noah Bennet sat down and decided that the family would remain in New York. Sheer size and volume of people would go farther to hide the Bennet's, particularly Claire, from the Company and help keep her ability a secret. What would be front page news in Odessa would likely barely make the news paper at all in New York. Noah had insisted, to both Lyle and Claire's dismay, that they not contact any of their old friends; it was too dangerous for all parties. Claire could see the point and even obeyed, for the most part. She had sent one email to Zach, the best friend she had found and lost two separate times, to let him know she was alive but that she wouldn't be able to contact him again.

The day her mother collapsed again, all she wanted was to run back to Odessa and hide wherever he was. It was thoughts of him that kept her going through her mother's excruciating month long downturn in health, through her death and her father's decent into deep depression. The three months after her mother died she tried to simultaneously graduate high school, take care of Lyle, and hold her father together, put food on the table, grieve and cling to the shattering remains of her family. The only reason she succeeded was the other heroes; they gave her the support she needed, the time she couldn't do without. She refused money from the Petrelli's time and again, then pretended not to notice when money would appear in their bank account when they needed it most. All she wanted to do was run as fast as she could, escape. She thought of Zach often, wishing that she had his sense of humor, his voice, his smile with her during the darkest times.

As the months passed she made a decision, as soon as the family was back on even keel she scheduled time off with work and school, she bought the most inexpensive round trip plane ticket she could. Finally, three months after her mother passed, five months after Kirby plaza she stood in Odessa Texas hoping to find her friend for the third time. As careful as she was no one noticed that she had arrived in the small town of her childhood, as she made her way carefully up the well remembered walkway to Zach's home. She was disappointed, crushed to find out that he wasn't there. That he had graduated early, left to college not bothering to tell anyone where he went or staying in touch with his own parents. They weren't worried but Claire immediately was.

She spoke to Peter after she returned and added one more thing onto her list, find Zach. Afraid that something horrible happened to her longtime friend she began to search whenever she had the chance. Peter, along with all the other heroes, helped when they could but even five months later everyone was still trying to regain control over their lives. Molly Walker, still recovering from her bout with the Shanti virus, was unable to find anyone she hadn't met personally. The search dragged after a few months, only to be renewed with new vigor after she graduated; more importantly after Sylar/Gabriel was found alive. Again with the limited resources available it took another 6 months before anyone even had a hint, and then like it was fate, one month ago Matt had had to go to NYU to investigate a crime there and through sheer happenstance found him. With the knowledge that he attended NYU, of all places, they were able to find out exactly where he lived. So now she was standing in front of his dorm, in the middle of the campus of the college she had been accepted to, hoping that he would be happy to see her.

She stood there for maybe five minutes trying to build courage when she heard an achingly familiar voice behind her, "Can I help you find something?" Her face broke into a relieved smile at his voice, and as she turned around her heart gave a mighty thump as she caught sight of him. Her smile widened at the look of shock on his face, and the incredulous note to his voice as he said, "Claire!"

She smiled at him with a short, "Hi Zach."He was with a group of maybe 5 or 6 people, though he had been a loner in high school, all of them somehow looked like they were the kind of people he would want to hang out with. Slogan shirts and buttons abound, they had stopped to look at her after Zach exclamation. Suddenly she felt out of place, why would Zach, who had been so individual all of their school career, who had found new people to hang around with who were more into the stuff he was, want to have anything to do with a former cheerleader who kept disappearing on him, with all the baggage she came with.

Before her thoughts could go much further Zach's face split into a mile wide grin and she found herself swept up into a pair of strong arms. His scent surrounded her and in that instant realized exactly what Marie meant when she talked about giving her heart once. Even as she clung to him with tears burning in her eyes and a feeling of safety for the first time in almost a year a part of her marveled at the fact that she had fallen head over heel in love with her best friend and never noticed. Even that part of her was silenced as she began to sob lightly; the fear she couldn't acknowledge and the hope she couldn't afford crashing into her relief. She never noticed Zach's confused frown, never heard the words he spoke to his friends, never felt as he gently guided her to up to his dorm. He held her as she cried the sorrow, stress, and fear of the last year into his shoulder.

After about fifteen minutes she calmed, having finally run out of tears, Zach looked at her briefly then ask, "Not that I'm not glad to see you and all, but what caused that?"

Claire, more than a little frayed around the edges, snapped at him, "I was worried about you, you idiot. I've been trying to find you for 6 months now on top of everything else, and you were here the whole time? I thought they had taken you, I wasn't even sure you were alive."

"First of all, who would want to take me and why? Second, what else had happened?" Claire looked down slightly and just breathed for a moment, "Claire, tell me what happened?"

"It's a long story."

Zach smiled at her, "I have the time, so talk to me, Claire"

Claire talked. She told him about her flight from Odessa with the Haitian, finding out who her father was. She described Kirby Plaza and the decision to remain in New York. Zach hugged her again through the death of her mother, the secrets revealed when Molly Walker found Sylar, the months of searching for Zach. She was crying by the end, remembered hurts and fears and stress ganging up on her. The whole process took nearly an hour and a half and by the time they were done it felt like they had never left Odessa. Zach in turn filled her in on his life here in New York; his reasons behind never contacting his parents, everything. By the end of his story Claire's tears had dried and left tracks of salt down her face. When Peter popped into existence nearly four hours after he had dropped Claire off at the college, Zach jumped; Claire didn't. There were some quick greetings exchanged as well as some slightly longer goodbyes. As Claire walked over to Peter she stopped and half turned so she could see Zach, "I almost forgot the other reason I was here. I was hoping you would come to a wedding"

"You want me to be your wedding date"

Claire smiled brightly and with laughter in her voice she repeated, "I want you to be my wedding date."

_**Another one out of the way, I am beginning to think I will need to create subsets for this universe, but that won't come until I have more stories up. Next up is the Wedding it self **_


End file.
